(the YKOil blog) A lot of type about the Oilers. Less about sundry other topics.

Thursday, 31 July 2008

Atlanta Thrashers 2008 HRDR - by Pick

Atlanta Thrashers

v. 2008

Historical Review of Draft Results

Results by Draft Pick Used

Please reserve comment for a future post wherein I will request commentary on the review as a whole.

Two factors are important when evaluating a teams drafting history in terms of the Draft Pick used to secure the prospect. Those factors are: 1) the quality of player and 2) which pick was used. Players drafted 1st overall should become 'stars' (if not superstars) while players drafted, say, 209th are true longshots.

i.e. a 'star' player drafted 210th overall is worth more than if that same 'star' player was drafted 15th overall.

This also affects the negative scores of unranked players drafted early; let's face it - screwing up a top-10 pick, on which the organization has spent considerable scouting resources, is worse than screwing up a 244th throw-away pick.

Note that this chart is closely related to the study that looks at Results by Round when Player was Drafted. Very closely related. Given that the principle is roughly the same (don't screw up early draft picks) I even used the same wording for some sections.

Note: I have not yet come up with a decent formula to use for the purposes of handing out grading scores (as done elsewhere).

All this study really does it confirm what we should already know - if the Atlanta Thrashers are picking in the top 2 spots the odds are good that they will get a decent player. Yay team. Stefan is the lone 'miss' and even then, it is hard to blame the team given the dip in quality that draft year.

The study also confirms that between picks 30 through 211 (roughly rounds 2 through 7) the team has generated some god-awful results. If Darcy Hordichuk is the best you can get, out of some 61 draft picks over 10 years, you have issues that need to be addressed sooner rather than later.